Grateful 

[As published in March/April BayBuzz magazine.]

Paul Paynter quotes German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer as we sit at the table in his Yummy Fruit meeting room in St Georges Road South reflecting on the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle.

“I think that our lives are not supposed to go well all the time,” he says expanding on the idea behind the famous philosopher’s quote. “Our lives are not pointless, and neither are our tragedies. If you don’t believe that then it’s too easy to give yourself up to nihilism and despair.

“There is more love and kinder people when the road is hard.” 

It is 2lst of February, a beating hot blue-sky day and eight days since the cyclone ravaged Hawke’s Bay and caused mayhem and destruction to the orchard empire Paul’s grandfather founded in 1904.

“There is much for me to be grateful for today,” he says. “I’m poorer (15 of his orchards were swamped in more than two metres of water, 17% of his trees have been immediately wiped out, his apple crop available for harvest is down 35%) and I’ve got plenty of work to do and things to think about. But most importantly no one has died. Our 22 RSE workers were rescued and are safe, and the company’s total staff of 480 are all okay, too.” 

Paul was on his way back to New Zealand from the Berlin Fruit Trade Fair – the first time he’d been to it since Covid in 2019 and with some “arrangements concluded” – when he looked at weather maps and could see Cyclone Gabrielle was going “to be big”. 

When he flew into Auckland on the Monday, domestic flights were cancelled. “I don’t know why. I don’t like flying but I was prepared to fly, the weather wasn’t terrible.” 

He got stuck in an airport hotel for two nights and then diverted to Palmerston North. 

By the time he got home his tally of orchards had become a tale of two worlds: Trees south of the Ngaruroro River were bursting with shiny fruit and, in fact as we speak, Yummy Fruit has just sent 47 pallets of apples out to the domestic market.

By contrast, over on Yummy Fruit’s Pakowhai, Meeanee and Eskdale orchards it was a story of loss: Fifteen tractors rendered useless, irrigation pipes disappeared, rich soil, trees and crops gone.

“We’ve got some real issues with the silt,” he says. “Some of it is very fine and has become a muddy slurry. 

“All of HB was formed by this river silt,” he points out, “but it takes 50 -100 years, even better, 200 years, to create good soil that is fully developed and has oxygen in it. There is so much life in soil even though we can’t see it. 

“But this silt from Cyclone Gabrielle has literally drowned the soil. It has lost its microbial content. Trees will suffocate in it,” he says. 

“So a lot of the trees that look ok now won’t be in three months, especially if they are subject to heat.”

Paul doesn’t think it’s worth even trying to remove the silt at his Eskdale properties. He’s been out there and as Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says, ‘It looks like the Somme. It’s apocalyptic’.

“We won’t recover anything out there – it’s shut the gate. In Meeanee we’re trying to recover the crop. There we had surface water but not into the tree canopy.”

Paul paid his entire staff the week after the cyclone. “The payroll administrator, trapped with no power or phone, drove across town to get Wi-Fi and ran the payroll off her laptop. She was a hero. But how many weeks can I do that and pay staff for doing things that are not generating money? We need a wage subsidy as soon as possible.”

“The issue for growers,” he says, “is that many have lost their income for this year and if the trees die, their income for the next five years. Also, if they lose all the value of those productive assets then even their land may be worth a lot less than it was two weeks ago. So financially they are crippled. The banks will fund the harvest but won’t be keen to provide cash for anything else. Their security is now uncertain too. Without some government assistance there will be a lot of suffering. 

“I’m just wounded while others are destroyed. 

“We will downsize significantly or find some new investors or something so this is an inverse lottery win for us and it feels unjust. But as I see it I’ve got two options: I can be grateful for what I do have or I can become bitter and resentful.

“With these events, like the Christchurch earthquake, there’s a huge sense of injustice. Here I have a beautiful block of trees, the sun’s shining through them and they couldn’t look better, yet a short distance away you’ve got people who have lost their homes and orchards and been lucky to escape with their lives.

“I don’t feel poorer than I was last week, even though I am. Today I’ve got less and I’m not sure I needed it all anyway. If I lost it all I’d write that epic novel we all have planned. All of this stops me being who I want to be … so I’d be free. And maybe I am a little freer than I was, less burdened by possessions. 

“I do a bit of plant breeding in my spare time, and I might have time to do more. It is glorious, it’s the thing that makes me happiest.”

Paul says people’s emotional shock absorbers are worn out. “They’re really struggling. So, trying to stay positive and refusing to let yourself feel pity, resentment, is important. 

“Because I am a borderline creative, I have a perpetually gloomy soul, but the cure to all that I have discovered is to be enduringly grateful and refuse to be anything else. 

“I think we need to be grateful for all our days, even the bad ones.”